Good morning, good morning, and good morning. On my one-week holiday to hot and sunny Egypt in the middle of November, I make a habit of getting up at 5:30 in the morning to say hello to the sun. Some mornings the unrises are magnificent while on other mornings it just goes from being dark to being light without a lot of fanfare. 
No matter what, I relish my early morning forays Down to the Red Sea where I have things mostly to myself. The only sound is the surf, and the only other people are a few joggers and a yoga enthusiast. This is before the hotel guests commence their daily competition for the sunbeds, before inane pop music sounds from variously placed loudspeakers and before I get caught downwind from cigarette smokers – of which there are rather more than I like. I really appreciate the fact that Denmark has so many non-smoking areas. Egypt could learn.
It is very rare that my holidays are in the ‘sunbathe, loll-on-a-sunbed, swim, eat, sunbathe and read’ category, but that’s what it’s like this time around. My two main goals are 1) to spend as much time as possible in the water either swimming in the pool or snorkeling in the sea and 2) to see the pyramids and sphinx at Giza. Happily, I meet both goals.
Life as a mermaid
Spending time in the water is not difficult. The hotel complex has several pools. I quickly find my favourite one. It is the deepest and longest, has a snack bar with delicious food and the music is not overly loud. I choose a sunbed as far away from the others as possible (does that sound anti-social?) to avoid the loudspeakers and smokers and spend hours reading edifying literature and swimming in the rather icy water as much as possible.
The other pretty wonderful possibility is to snorkel from the pier belonging to the hotel. I discover that it is least crowded and there is less current in the mornings, so early bird that I am I snorkel among the corals, clams and colourful fish in the mornings and loll about the pool the rest of the day. 
The marine animals are the main thing here, but there is also a neat bird called hoopoe. Several of them are regular guests at the hotel, where they spend their time pecking for grubs or whatever it is they find in the lawn. When alarmed or showing off they fan out the showy crest on their head and look very pretty.
Aquatic adventures in a national park
The absolutely best time spent in the water is at the Ras Muhammad National Park. I go on a full-day excursion where we snorkel from a boat at three different locations. The underwater world here is pretty amazing. There are more than 250 types of coral and about 1300 species of fish, many of them endemic and most of them stunning.
Bright yellow, purple, pink, striped, multi-coloured, and in many different
shapes and sizes. The Red Sea is the saltiest sea (the Dead Sea is actually a
lake), so it is very easy to float.
I lose complete track of time as I swim slowly through the watery landscape, eyes wide open to all the sights. At one point a large figure emerges in the distance and swims directly towards me. It morphs into a sea turtle that does not seem the least bit fazed by my presence in its path.
It is escorted by two small fish that keep it clean. I stop moving in order not to scare the turtle away. Unfortunately, some other tourists come barreling in from the right with their selfie sticks, so that ends my meeting with the turtle, that abruptly dashes off to the left and disappears in the shadows. I snorkel until I am too cold and tired to continue and get back on the boat, reluctant to leave the aquatic paradise behind.
